Deval Patrick apologists fire back
Wave Maker takes me to task by calling me a demagogue and hypocrite for pointing out that Governor-elect Patrick’s actions certainly don’t match the Beacon Hill “outsider” image he carefully cultivated during the campaign. As evidence of his rectitude, he cites Mitt Romney’s inaugural, which was funded by the same special interests funding Deval Patrick’s inaugural. He then goes on to presume I’m a shill who would have vigorously defended Mitt because I’m not intellectually honest. However, I’d like to make a few points in my own defense.
First, I’m unclear as to how Wave Maker knows how I would have reacted if I’d been blogging at the time. There’s certainly nothing in my previous postings that suggests I’m a shill for our departing governor. In fact, if you’re a regular reader, you’ve seen me take Republicans, like President Bush, to task when I think they are wrong. So as the foremost expert on myself, especially when we’re speaking in strictly hypothetical terms, I’m going to give myself the benefit of the doubt.
Second, this debate isn’t about what Mitt Romney did or didn’t do. It’s about what Deval Patrick is doing today and what he promised to do. Nowhere in Wave Maker’s defense of Patrick’s actions (yes, there are a number of broken promises already) does he address whether Patrick is living up to his campaign rhetoric. He only contends that Mitt’s actions were substantially similar so any criticism of Patrick is hypocritical because somehow it’s my job to defend or be held accountable for Mitt Romney. But it’s not my job to defend Romney, and even if I knew Mitt was beholden to the state’s special interests, that doesn’t make it ok for Patrick to do the same.
Third, the parallels Wave Maker draws are an indictment of Patrick and not a defense. Patrick repeatedly characterized the Romney administration as a place where special interests paid to play. So if you truly felt that way, wouldn’t you avoid the same traps? Patrick promised us a change of direction from the Romney administration, not a return to it so you are certainly damning him with feint praise if the best you can say is he’s just like the guy he campaigned against.
So there are a number of problems with Wave Maker’s indictment. It’s based upon a hypothetical of what I might have done. He assumes it’s my job to defend Mitt Romney. And he relies on the fallacious assumption that past “bad” behavior excuses future recurrences. If you want to take Mitt to task for his governorship, do so, but don’t muddy the waters when the real issue is Deval Patrick.
Archived in: Deval Patrick, Mitt Romney, RepublicansDecember 15, 2006 at 4:15 pm | Trackback
6 comments
Fellow readers of New England Republican:
I ask that you carefully parse the post to which OP links, and identify anywhere within it that I call OP a “hypocrite,” a “shill” or “intellectually dishonest.”
I also want to point out that I do not believe that raising inaugural money from corporate Fat Cats or their lawyers, or combining inaugural festivities with populist (if politically contrived) gestures is “bad behavior” on anyone’s part. Therefore, I do not consider myself a “Deval Patrick Apologist,” because in this issue, I don’t think he has anything to apologize for.
To the extent that OP’s position is that it was equally wrong for Mitt to have done so, then I owe him an apology.
I would, however, call him thin-skinned.
In the parlance of the times, this dispute is “unfortunate”, because the parties are two, very talented and energetic conservatives, in contention over consistency and expectation rather than the things that matters most, conservative ideas. I admire both of you, and this thing makes little sense to me.
As for you Wave, it would be difficult to interperet your post at your blog as other than a plaint about hypocrisy, whether you used the word or not. “Intellectual dishonesty” probably follows from that, too. But I don’t know your state of mind when you wrote it; I can’t conclude that you meant either of these things, but you certainly implied that profligacy is “bad behavior”, whether or not it’s adorned with “populist” cant. The selection of the subject matter speaks for itself. There’s a penumbra, so to speak.
As for OP, now that the issue of Romney’s excesses are known, it seems to me slightly false and evasive to say that the issue is Patrick alone. I don’t recognize a “shill” in you, nor do I recognize an “apologist” in Wave. Wave seems to be looking for the enemy of the good, the perfect, however illusory that is, and doesn’t appear to be defending Patrick.
My own two cents: The broad cultural expectations of Democrats, whether liberal or not, and especially non-white Democrats, are very low, and that needs to be emphasized whenever possible. Liberalism, especially, is bargain-basement virtue; it’s faux-Rolex piety, and all of them own one or two. It’s all bullshit. Republicans of all kinds are held to other measurements; I resent this myself. There’s a lack of balance that needs to be addressed with a blunt instrument. Strict neutrality is impossible, lest you spend laods of your time looking for identical failings on our side in order to be intellectually pure. This is an exercize for the courtroom, not for casual commentary.
I’m sorry to see you guys going at it.
Hey Guys…
We’ve got work to do! Let’s leave the distractions and denials to our loyal opposition…I can hear the words right now as fresh in my ears as the day he said them…”We’ve all got an oar to row”.
“I would, however, call him thin-skinned.”
The title of your post is “Hypocrisy Among the Partisans”. And your intent seems fairly clear from the opening paragraph where you refer to “the partisan demagoguery coming from fellow Republicans here in Massachusetts.” I wasn’t one of the partisan hypocrites or demagogues you were referring to?
res ipsa loquitur.
Well, I’m not exactly sure how to interpret that, wave, but ok.